This may be the first time that you have ever been exposed to the notion that Paul might not have been exactly who he says he was within the pages of the Bible.
After all, you believed your Church when they told you that God (effectively) wrote the Bible. You believed your church when they told you God put Paul into the Bible. You believed your Church’s spin when they told you that, “God has no reason to lie to you.”
This last excuse is an especially vacuous argument; the Church is always trying to drag GOD into THEIR lies. It’s the Church’s go-to logical fallacy to get you to shut up and believe whatever they tell you. But what they are really doing is attempting to erect a firewall excuse to bully you into submission.
“You’re questioning God if dare question the Church or the Bible!” is the ruse. But all it really is, is just a logical fallacy. The Church has nothing to prove that GOD ever instructed anyone to create a Bible nor what books to place within it. Except their own man-made tradition.
But it’s also an easy excuse to nuke. I guess all the Reformers were “questioning God” when then went against the ostensibly God-given edicts of the Roman Catholic Church and actually dropped entire books from the Church’s wholly inspired Bible?
Yes, the argument is totally vacuous and holds no water whatsoever.
So as we peel back the layers of man-made Church tradition, we discover that it isn’t GOD who is really lying to you — it’s only the Church who is.
It may seem ironic, but GOD has nothing to do with the Church—or their lies.
The Church acts as if they are the only ones who can possibly be right; and any view or perspective outside of what the Church officially recognizes is automatically “a lie of Satan from the pit of HELL!” But again, all that posturing is just another arrogant LIE of the Church, emphasized with a bit of drama to bully you into submitting to their deceptions.
The truth is, you don’t need the Church to see GOD more clearly.
In fact, the Pagan (Gentile) Church and its Pagan Bible are what are keeping you from seeing GOD more clearly by keeping you from seeing what the Jewish Jesus and his Jewish Apostles actually taught.
And the so-called “Apostle” Paul ensconced with their Bible—is the reason you don’t see that there are actually …
Two Gospels
What we as everyday Gentile (Pagan, meaning non-Jewish) Christians do not realize, because we are not Jewish and we cannot “see” any difference, is that there are actually two gospels at work within the pages of the Roman Catholic New Testament.
One is Paul’s.
The other is Jesus’ and his Apostles.
This is by design. It’s not some cosmic accident. There is just enough of the Jewish Jesus in the Bible to lead you into thinking that Paul and Jesus were or on the same page. But that is where Jesus ends and Paul literally takes over the Bible.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many of Paul’s books within the Bible? Paul literally makes up 1/3 of the New Testament in terms of number of books; and if you include the books by Paul’s group, so to speak, namely Luke, the unknown author of Hebrews, the authors of the Gospel of John (no, the Apostle John did not write the book), and the authors of the books of Peter (Peter didn’t write these books either), Paul makes up literally 2/3, 18 of the 27 books of the NT canon. (See the below article for some details of who really wrote the books of the Bible.)
Again, this heavily weighted inclusion of Paul didn’t happen by accident; it was by design, a design of the early Church fathers assembling their version of a Bible canon that contained only what they wanted to preach as their patented “New Covenant” (“New Testament”) gospel.
Once we read about Jesus in the Gospels, he’s more or less history and then Paul literally takes over; Jesus more or less becomes window dressing, and it is only Paul’s brand of gospel that gets taught—and the truly Jewish Gospel that Jesus actually teaches, gets hidden, even relegated to the trash bin as a “works-based” effort to save yourself—which God, according to Paul and the Pagan Church in Rome, utterly repudiates as the most egregious sin anyone can commit.
We even see Paul disputing with the Apostles, Peter and James, about their brand of gospel, an ostensibly “Judaizing” gospel that is attempting to force Pagan Gentiles into accepting the Jewish law of works! (GASP!)
The other odd thing is, Paul never once quotes Jesus—ever. And Paul never once quotes GOD via the prophets, except to point out where GOD is wrong. (Note Paul’s misquotes, his misinterpretations of Torah from Galatians.)
Because of Paul’s popularity and prominence within the New Testament canon, it is Paul’s Pagan (Gentile) gospel that gets preached more often than not within Christian churches. Paul is, after all, the assumed apostle in ultimate authority within the New Testament. What Paul says—goes. EVEN to the point of overriding the words of Jesus and the Prophets, even the words of GOD!
“Do we follow the Law, or not?”
Every now and then some pastor gets themselves into hot water with the congregation by accidentally preaching Jesus’, James’, and Peter’s version of the Gospel instead of Paul’s (or in conjunction with Paul’s).
I remember sitting in an Adventist church one time when the pastor was preaching a sermon series on the Law. In Adventism, the Law of God is featured much more prominently that it is within other Protestant denominations. The Law is to be actually followed; which is why Adventists keep Shabbat (the Sabbath worship day) on the 7th day, Saturday, and not the 1st day, Sunday, like the rest of (Roman Catholic) Christianity does.
Historically, ALL Christians (followers of Jesus) beginning in the first century kept the 7th day as their day of rest and worship, in observance of the Jewish Fourth Commandment. It is what Jesus and the Apostles did. It was cultural. They were, after all, Jews.
However, Jewish custom did not settle well with the Roman Pagans who observed a rest and worship day on the 1st day of the week, a day they called Dies Solis, or “Sun’s Day”, in honor of their pagan sun god. This was also referred to within Church literature and liturgy as “the Lord’s Day”.
It would be during the Council of Laodicea in circa 364 CE that the Catholic Church would attempt to change the Christian worship day from the Jewish Shabbat to the day Pagan Rome found more appealing, which was “Sun’s Day”, or the first day of the week. It was the Pagan worship day most Romans were used to keeping anyway in veneration of their pagan gods, namely Solis, the sun god, and Mithras, the pagan god Paul would fashion his version of Jesus after. (I discuss this Jesus, Paul and Mithras business in both my book and the below article.)
Getting back to our story about our pastor accidentally preaching Jesus’ Gospel, this Adventist pastor was having a very difficult time preaching both Jesus’ message of upholding the Law and Paul’s version of ignoring it.
The flip-flopping caused no small amount of controversy, dare I say the sensing of overt hypocrisy, within the congregation.
“Do we follow the Law or not?” a now frustrated senior church member asked?
The pastor simply blew off the question; mostly because he couldn’t truthfully answer the deep contradictions between the two gospels. Honestly, I’m not sure he even realized there were two gospels. If all you are doing is really following Paul, you just don’t see the Jewish version.
“What Paul really meant was …”
This Adventist pastor is not the only one to get tipped-up by Paul’s contradictory gospel. You can find all kinds of Christian books on “what Paul really meant” or “what Jesus was really saying” about the Law of God.
The only reason these books exist is because of the obvious contradictions between the teachings of Jesus and the contradictory teachings of Paul. These books are simply massive attempts at rationalizing, reconciling two things that cannot be reconciled.
All kinds of Christian lay people, leaders, and scholars throughout the past five centuries have been deeply searching for new ways and means to somehow unify or reconcile the deep divide between what Jesus and the Apostles said versus what Paul was teaching.
In a nutshell, Jesus upholds the Law (to a degree) and preaches a Gospel (a Baptism) of Repentance for the forgiveness of sin. Meaning, it is what you DO, your repentant WORKS, that GOD is looking at.
Paul, on the other hand, utterly disavows and junks the Law as a “curse”, dismisses it as having any relevance for salvation, and declares that only one’s FAITH in Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection is the only means for forgiveness of sin. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. Only your BELIEF is what matters.
The two gospels are not compatible.
Not even close.
Jesus and Paul teach two completely different things for two completely different reasons and have two completely different views about GOD and how forgiveness is achieved.
You, sitting in church, have been taught the latter Pauline version and been told that this is the same Gospel that Jesus taught!
But that is a LIE borne of Church tradition. Jesus NEVER taught what Paul was teaching. Ever.
And being a Protestant Pagan (Gentile) Christian, you have never really been exposed to a true period Hebraic perspective or culture like Jesus and the Apostles grew up having.
No, you have only been taught to think that Jesus is just like you are, culturally speaking, a Pagan Gentile. As far as you know, Jesus went to Church on Sunday, just like you do today.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Jesus was not a Pagan (Gentile) Christian. Jesus was a JEW. He behaved like a Jew; he thought like a Jew. He served and taught in the Temple, as and like a Jew.
Just so you know, Jesus worshipped on Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, called the Shabbat, or Sabbath. Sun’s Day was a Pagan worship day that Jesus would not have been keeping. Jesus was not Pagan.
You have been spoon-fed a “Christianized” or “Paganized” perspective of a Pagan (version of) “Jesus” and a Pagan “Gospel” that isn’t Hebraic at all. It is a perspective that if Jesus, or James, or Peter were sitting in your church today, would not recognize.
This is why I have said many times that if Jesus showed up in the flesh to preach in your church, you’d want to throw him out of the building, because he would be saying very Jewish things you, oh Gentile (Pagan) Christian, would not agree with.
You would not agree with the real Jewish Messiah or the real Jewish Apostles because the Roman Catholic Pagan Bible has given you a Pagan (Gentile) version of Jesus, a Pagan version that is Paul’s Hellenized (Pagan) version of Jesus, and you have no idea what the real historical Jewish Jesus is even like!
I’m bringing this up because I want you to know that when you adopt a much more Hebraic perspective of Jesus and the Apostles, as many if not most seminary students are taught to do if they are attending a well-rounded seminary, you begin to notice a few things within the Bible that you were never able to see before.
Paul’s Other Jesus: History versus the Bible
It is well established history that Paul never met Jesus in person and that he (Paul) had issues and/or disagreements with the “Super Apostles”, Jesus’ hand-picked Disciples who knew and walked with him personally.
So at least we have some confirmation that there was Paul’s Pagan (Gentile) group, and there were the Jewish Apostles.
However, the depth of Paul’s disagreements with Jesus’ Apostles gets heavily watered down and even reversed within the Roman Catholic Bible via the writings of Luke and the forged letters of Peter. If we look at the Roman Catholic Bible as the inerrant tome the Church purports it to be, then fine, yes, Paul and the Apostles were all just one big happy family.
But that is not historically the facts or the truth. (I discuss this disagreement in depth within the below article.)
The bogus history of tradition that the Church preaches is that Paul was best buddies with the Apostles. But that is a lie. The historical fact of the matter was (as opposed to the tradition the Church makes up), Paul and the Apostles were bitter rivals; and there are numerous extant (surviving) historical documents to back this up.
“But Keith! Acts of the Apostles is — ”
— a lying writ. Your Church is lying to you about the origin and authenticity of Acts of the Apostles being a factual document. The book was written by Luke, Paul’s buddy and traveling companion. Luke was a Pagan, a Gentile. So how did a non-Jewish book end up in what should be a Judaic tome?
Bible scholars have long realized this as well …
“… the purposes of the book of Acts is to minimize the conflict between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later Christian tradition, became twin saints, brothers in faith, and the idea that they were historically bitter opponents standing for irreconcilable religious standpoints would have been repudiated with horror.
The work of the author of Acts was well done; he rescued Christianity from the imputation of being the individual creation of Paul, and instead gave it a respectable pedigree, as a doctrine with the authority of the so-called Jerusalem Church, conceived as continuous in spirit with the Pauline Gentile Church of Rome.” —MACOBY, Hyam, (Christian / Jewish / Talmudic scholar) The Mythmaker, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986 p. 139
You’ve likely never heard of this before. But this is but a fraction of what the Church is hiding from you, me, all of us, that they don’t want anyone knowing.
I want to examine this issue now between what is “historical” and what is “Biblical”, because the two are often not in agreement. Most Christians consider the Bible to inerrant and as such indisputable history. But that, again, is just more man-made Church tradition getting in the way of the historical facts.
Often these days you will see someone discussing the “historical” Jesus versus the “Christian” or “traditional” Jesus. This is basically a nice way of saying that the “traditional” Jesus is a lie. A fabrication.
In the context of Peter and Paul, the historical facts are, looking at other early Christian writings, Peter and Paul were not friends at all, but were instead, as noted above, bitter rivals.
Nowhere do we see this deep divide more clearly than within Paul’s own letters. Church tradition has watered down the rivalry, even to the point of calling Peter a dunce (more or less) and setting up Paul as the clear winner of their pubic disagreements.
But who was the real Apostle in authority here? Who was Jesus hand-picked Apostle?
It was Peter.
Not Paul.
Peter and the Wolf
Dr. Bart Ehrman, one of the more renowned scholars of Christian history of our time, sums up the situation with a perspective that is more in keeping with the historical record regarding what really happened between Peter and Paul, but it is a perspective you, dear Pagan Christian, are never allowed to know about:
“The controversy between Peter and Paul presupposed in [the Homilies and Recognitions] is premised on a real, historical conflict between the two, evidenced in Paul’s own writings. In particular, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul speaks of a public encounter with Peter in the city of Antioch over the issue of whether Gentiles who have become Christian need to observe the Jewish Law (Gal. 2:1–14). Paul reports the encounter and states in the strongest terms that Gentiles are under no circumstances to be required to keep the Law.
As scholars have long noted, however, Paul does not indicate the outcome of the public altercation — leading to the widely held suspicion that this was one debate that Paul lost, at least in the eyes of those who observed it.” —EHRMAN, Bart D., Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, 2005, p. 184
In his argument with Peter, Paul makes it sound like he’s the real authority regarding the Law. However, we never get Peter’s side of the argument within the Roman Catholic Bible. But that doesn’t mean it was never recorded. It just means the Church doesn’t want you knowing what the outcome was.
As Dr. Ehrman has pointed out, we do know from the Homilies and Recognitions what happened and what Peter’s side of the argument was. Peter dresses-down the interloping Paul in no uncertain terms. Peter says:
“And if our Jesus appeared to you also and became known in a vision and met you as angry with an enemy [recall that Paul had his vision while still persecuting the Christians; Acts 9], yet he has spoken only through visions and dreams or through external revelations. But can anyone be made competent to teach through a vision? And if your opinion is that that is possible, why then did our teacher spend a whole year with us who were awake? How can we believe you even if he has appeared to you? …
But if you were visited by him for the space of an hour and were instructed by him and thereby have become an apostle, then proclaim his words, expound what he has taught, be a friend to his apostles and do not contend with me, who am his confidant; for you have in hostility withstood me, who am a firm rock, the foundation stone of the Church.” —Homilies 17.19
The Apostle Peter pulls no punches here in his dressing-down of Paul. Peter challenges Paul’s vision by saying a couple of things, namely:
“Can anyone be made competent to teach through a vision?”
and
“How can we believe you?”
Meaning, Peter and the rest do NOT believe Paul’s story about meeting a spiritual Jesus on the road to Damascus. Finally, to slightly paraphrase Peter’s words from above,
“If you [Paul] were really instructed by Jesus then you should be preaching the exact same thing as we who actually walked with him!”
Peter pretty much wins the smackdown here. This also leads us to the obvious conclusion that Paul was NOT teaching the same gospel as the Apostles.
Finally, Peter pulls rank,
“Be a friend to [Jesus’] apostles and do not contend with me, who am his confidant; for you have in hostility withstood me, who am a firm rock, the foundation stone of the Church!”
Ouch.
Here is where we see the conflict openly and on full display. Paul is the clear interloper here and not the bona-fide accepted “apostle” he claims himself to be. Paul is preaching something different. Something that conflicts deeply with the Super Apostles.
In other words, Paul is a LIAR. And what Paul is preaching is a LIE.
Later on we see Paul even admitting to this in his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul admits openly that he preaches a “different” Jesus, Gospel, under a different Spirit than the “Super Apostles”. (Note the below article discussing these differences and why.)
This deep division between the Apostles and Paul’s group (namely, Luke, Silas, et. al., Paul had amassed a group of twelve of his own disciples according to Luke’s Acts) was well known in the first and second century and even beyond.
It has been only time and tradition and a deliberate withholding of the facts that have erased the deep conflict and controversy from modern Christian memory.
Beware of “Ravenous Wolves”: Jesus’ Prophesy of Paul
The previous section entitled “Peter and the Wolf”, discussing Peter’s confrontation(s) with Paul, I gave you a bit of a foreshadowing alluding to a well-known understanding that the Jews of Paul’s day knew about him, understandings that would have been hidden and lost to us Pagan (Gentile) Christians because we are never taught much, if any, Jewish/Hebraic custom, history, or lore.
Paul was well-received by the Pagan Gentile Christians of his day; but he was vehemently rejected by the Jewish ones. Christianity spins this rejection typically as, “Those stupid evil Jews just didn’t want to accept God! They just wanted to wallow in their works-based Law of sin and death!”
No, that is NOT why Jewish Christians didn’t accept Paul.
They refused to listen to him, even wanted to kill him, because he was a lying, thieving, murderous charlatan. An interloper. A false “apostle” who preached a conflicting PAGAN version of Jesus and gospel that wasn’t even remotely Judaic / Hebraic.
In Paul’s world, his “Jesus” was the reincarnation of, a re-branding of, the Pagan Persian god Mithras. THAT is what (or who) Paul was preaching, and that is what we find all throughout Paul’s letters and other NT books influenced by Paul’s Pagan brand of gospel.
Jesus warned the Disciples and the people with what can only be described as a nuanced prophecy that only they would recognize.
Language is indeed part of one’s culture. Quite often if you are unfamiliar with the culture and lore (history) you will miss something important, even ominous, within what is being said with whatever language.
Hebrew is no different. In fact, the more simplistic the language, the more nuanced it can be by tradition and culture.
Because modern Christians have little to no understanding of Hebraic (Jewish) culture, what is obvious to a Hebrew, a Jew, flies right by the Pagan (Gentile / non-Jewish) Christian.
It’s not your fault. You weren’t raised a Jew.
Bible translators, however, do not have your excuse. They do have, or are supposed to have, deep understandings of the Hebraic world and period (historical) Hebraic thought and culture.
One of these not so deep cultural nuances is a Jewish phrase that goes way back into Hebraic culture, all the way back to the time of Jacob and the original twelve sons of Israel.
Most of us don’t spend that much time in the Tanakh (Old Testament) reading Jewish history and even if we did read it, we don’t recall that Benjamin was the youngest of the twelve sons whom Jacob “blessed” (prophesied) as a “ravenous wolf”, as one “who tears and devours his prey and then divides the spoils.”
In other words, Jacob was offering a prophecy, telling us what would come from Benjamin’s line, a line of murderous, deceitful thieves …
“Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Assemble yourselves, so that I may tell you what will happen to you in the [end of] days to come. … Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, and in the evening he divides the spoils.”
“All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one with the blessing appropriate to him.” —Genesis 49:1, 27–28
Nice “blessing” (prophecy) to get from your ailing father, but the history is what it is. To you and I, it’s meh, much ado about nothing; but to a Jew, a Hebrew, it’s part of your culture, your family. You know what tribe you’re from and the history of it. Somehow GOD had showed Jacob something of who would come down the line of Benjamin, and it wasn’t good news for the future of the Hebrew nation.
A Tale of Two Benjamites
There is an irony and a corollary that escapes quite a few Christians and even many Biblical scholars. King Saul of Israel and Saul-called-Paul of Tarsus have some very stark similarities in their lives, not the least of which is that they share the same name.
Both Paul and King Saul also had very similar “thorns in the flesh”. (Which we will get to seeing in a moment.) Like Paul, King Saul was also arrogant and refused to listen to GOD. Both men were on similar paths of murderous behavior. King Saul was persecuting and slaughtering the priests under Samuel; and Saul-called-Paul was persecuting and slaughtering the followers of Jesus, including the Apostles themselves.
Not so coincidentally, both Saul and Paul were Benjamites, from the same tribe of Benjamin. Again, Benjamin was the son whom Jacob prophesied as a “ravenous wolf” and one who “tears and devours prey”. King Saul’s arrogant and murderous behavior could easily be described as that of a “ravenous wolf”. Later, the Prophets themselves would write of Israel’s own evil leadership in the same manner, describing an evil religious leadership as roaring lions who “tear and devour” men as their prey. [Ezekiel 22:24–26]
This very Hebraic imagery is lost on most of us within the modern Christian world because we’re not culturally Jewish; but it was not lost on first-century Jewish Christians living in and around Jerusalem and Judea. Pagan (Gentile) Christians would have no clue about what Jesus was saying, which is why they didn’t recognized who and what Paul really was.
It was no accident—even prophetic—that Jesus also used this very same Hebraic imagery when he spoke of false religious leaders (false prophets, false apostles), calling such false leaders, “ravenous wolves”.
When the Jews who were listening to Jesus heard this, they knew the lore; they would be looking for a very specific kind of false prophet, false apostle— namely a lying, thieving, murderous Benjamite:
“Beware of the false prophets [leaders, apostles], who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits [what they do and say; how well they uphold the Law and Commandments of God]. Grapes [truthful teachings] are not gathered from thorn bushes [dishonest teachers] nor figs from thistles, are they? …
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness [who void or have contempt for the Law of God]. —Matthew 7:15–23 NASB, [amplification supplied]
Christian Bible translators are loath to admit this, but Paul fits Jesus’ prophecy perfectly. Some of our Bible translators know this, they have picked up on the corollary and just like the deliberate mistranslation of Paul’s admitted thorn, his “aggelos Satan” being re-cast, retranslated as “messenger of Satan” instead of “angel of Satan”, these Bible translators make another nuanced change to the Bible’s translated text to water-down or hide the Hebrew reference of Jesus describing false prophets (false apostles) as “ravenous wolves”.
Specifically, the NIV’s translators deliberately mistranslate this passage as “ferocious wolves” instead of “ravenous wolves” in what appears to be an attempt to distance Paul from the very specific “ravenous wolf” corollary — a corollary, incidentally, that the NASB Bible’s translators actually keep and even cross-references within their margin notes as coming from from Genesis!
Now you know that I am not just making this up.
So yes, the NIV’s translators are not stupid, they do see the deep Hebraic correlation Jesus makes quite clearly; and they don’t want you seeing it and attaching it to the other “ravenous wolf”, another murderous Benjamite plagued with a demon in the Bible — King Saul!
- Like King Saul, Paul was indeed a murderous Benjamite.
- Like King Saul, Paul prophesied as the Prophets and performed miracles.
- And like King Saul had done, Paul abandoned the Law of God.
- And like King Saul, GOD punished Paul with an “angel of Satan”, a demon that tormented him.
There is no question that the Gospel that Paul taught didn’t just downplay, but wholly dismissed the Law of God as irrelevant. Paul’s gospel was all about a human sacrifice and one’s belief in it—it was a gospel that utterly violated the Law of GOD without question.
And in the end, just like GOD cursed King Saul with a demonic spirit, GOD also cursed Paul with a demon that tormented him, an “angel of Satan”, a demon that GOD refused to take away.
Again, Paul fits the “ravenous wolf” corollary perfectly.
GOD’s Punishments Fit the Crime
I want us to understand something very clearly: GOD is just. GOD is not in the business of chastising people with punishments that do not fit the crime. Yes, Christians have been told that no sin is greater than another in the eyes of God.
That is NOT true.
Christians need to stop reading Paul, stop listening to bad Roman Catholic tradition, and start reading the Prophets more closely to understand that GOD’s chastisements, perhaps we could call it GOD’s version of Karma, are designed to fit the crime and help us to see how our actions have hurt others.
When GOD corrects us, the punishment indeed fits the crime, so to speak.
Paul’s murderous crimes were similar to King Saul’s and GOD punished Paul accordingly. Yes, the liar and murderer attempts to spin his GOD-given punishment as the result of his “successes” in the ministry and for his “boasting” about such. But getting saddled with a demon, an “angel of Satan”, for mere boasting? That is one of Paul’s biggest lies ever.
And as Christians who are told to look at Paul as one of the greatest apostles who ever lived, we just buy it. Well, because we don’t know any better. We’ve been trusting that the Church we just randomly chose is teaching us truth and not just man-made Pagan tradition.
I also want us to note the severity of both Saul’s and Paul’s demonic condition. Paul pleads with God three times to take away this demon — and each time, GOD says, No.
Three times.
Effectively, GOD is saying to Paul, “No. I’m done. You’re on your own.” GOD abandoned King Saul to his sin in the same way.
Notice also how Paul’s “Jesus” that he’s been preaching all this time is nowhere to be found to “rescue” him from GOD’s punishment, his torment. Where is Paul’s Jesus?? No, by this point GOD has abandoned Paul to his unrepentant sin. We can only assume that whatever Paul’s sin was, must have been deep and egregious.
From these examples, we can glean that there is in fact a point of no return with GOD. I don’t think that anyone of us in the modern era have ever reached this depth, maybe some of us have. Hitler comes to mind; perhaps some serial killer, drug cartel, or mass-shooting murderer. We’ll never know.
Conclusion
The final points are simply these:
There is a “ravenous wolf” ensconced within the pages of the Roman Catholic (Christian) Bible—his name is Saul called Paul of Tarsus.
Paul’s lying writings were put there by what can only be described as evil Pagan men within a Pagan Church who had a financial agenda of attracting as many Pagan (Gentile) Roman followers more than they cared about attracting a minority of Jewish followers.
Paul’s inclusion within their Pagan Bible had nothing to do with Paul being an actual “Apostle” and more to do with the anti-Semitic Hellenized Paul preaching a Pagan gospel, with a pagan version of “Jesus” under the influence of a demonic spirit. These, again, are Paul’s own words.
Paul’s Pagan gospel message was easily recognized and rejected as false by the more Jewish populations; but it was indeed a gospel message that easily resonated with the already Mithraic-aware populous in Pagan Rome.
